May 23, 2004

It is believed that American military presence in areas of conflict have been synonymous with the deliverance of freedom and human rights to the rightful people of the land. But history records sordid details of US maltreatment and arrogant policies of intervention in domestic affairs of sovereign states

A US Navy lieutenant and leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in a testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, recorded the following statement: “I would like to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honourably discharged, and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command ....

“They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.” The name of the US Navy lieutenant was John Kerry, presently Senator and Democrat candidate for the US presidency.

That was in Vietnam over three decades ago.

Now, we have Iraq, where the US holds 8,000 prisoners in 14 separate jails in Iraq, three main among which are Abu Ghraib and Camp Cropper in west Baghdad, and Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr which hold inmates for extended periods. It is in one of these prisons, at Abu Ghraib, that photographs clearly depicting inhuman behaviour towards Iraqi prisoners were taken and then leaked by a compassionate US sergeant to the US media which brought on international uproar against the US.

But, of course, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continues to insist that the pictures showing Iraqi prisoners being mistreated at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad reflect isolated incidents, whereas at the same time the BBC reports Al-Wafd, an opposition newspaper in Egypt, showing photographs of another incident where American soldiers are shooting civilians from a helicopter in Iraq.

Following the picture revelation scandal, Rumsfeld had to go through a six-hour grilling session by Congress and testify before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committee over the Iraqi prisoners’ mistreatment scandal, where some Democrats on the Senate Armed Services committee called for his sacking, but Republicans backed him, as has President George W. Bush. Rumsfeld has taken the only course open — to tender an apology accepting ‘full responsibility’ for what he said were abuses committed “on my watch”, at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. At the same time maintaining that it was an error on his part to not fully gauge the state of affairs at the said prison and hence his laxity in bringing up the issue with President Bush. So, to all intents, Mr Bush was in total ignorance and must not be blamed in any way for these chain of events.

Flashes of the Qadeer Khan ‘tactic’ at home dart across the mind. The political tactic of accepting blame for this ‘ghastly’ incident and of demonstrating horror, while issuing strong-worded statements such as, “Such acts are sadistic, cruel and inhuman” and “They were in US custody, and our country had an obligation to treat them right. We didn’t, and that was wrong,” is the only course left open for Mr Rumsfeld. And to follow it through with measures such as investigations and court martial of the offenders will perhaps serve to mollify American pride at being ‘found out’. But does it establish that these are ‘isolated incidents’ at the hands of a few who are ‘tarnishing the image of America’, which stands for, “unprecedented sacrifice for Human rights, etc?”

The hollowness of it all is the lie believed by one and all that American military presence in areas of conflict have been synonymous with the deliverance of freedom and human rights to the rightful people of the land. Whereas, history records sordid details of US maltreatment and arrogant policies of intervention in domestic affairs of sovereign states.

In Afghanistan, since the War on Terrorism was launched soon after September 11, arrests and illegal detention of Pakistanis in Afghanistan by US forces is routine procedure. Presently, 60 Pakistanis captured on suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban links continue to be held as detainees in Sharbaghan alone. Sources close to the border report that the total number of Pakistani detainees in all facilities adds up to almost 500, which include those captured by warlords and local Afghan commanders. Those held are as yet not convicted of any charge and remain in illegal detention simply on the suspicion that they would be able to provide information regarding Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar, Osama’s second in command, hence serving the purpose of both US as well as the Afghan warlords.

Some held by the local commanders manage to buy their release by paying anything between Rs200,000 to Rs500,000 or more, but most times even that is not a guaranteed way out and the money exchanged is lost.

President Hamid Karzai of the Afghan coalition, in his last visit to Pakistan, stated that he would aid towards releasing held Pakistanis, but so far only nine have been released. It seems that Karzai, too, has little say with US authorities and cannot wield much power against the local Afghan commanders, as is the case with the Pakistani government which has not made any official move to get its citizens released or even to get them a legal hearing. US forces operating in Afghanistan have also arbitrarily detained civilians in separate detention facilities at the Bagram, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Asadabad military bases. These frequent arrests of civilians and prolonged detention without informing families is patent procedure with US officials. Mostly, the arrests are based on mistaken or faulty intelligence, and numerous cases have been reported where civilians have been detained indefinitely without any charges.

There are also those who have been captured outside Afghanistan, like in Pakistan. In March 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an alleged Al Qaeda leader, was arrested in Pakistan and transported to the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. The same is the case with Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman who was picked up mysteriously in July 2003 after boarding a plane to Bangkok from Karachi. He never reached Bangkok and for days his wife could not trace his whereabouts. It was through a news item that she discovered her husband had been arrested by the FIA. The only contact so far taken place between Paracha and his family has been through a letter delivered to his wife by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

All prisoners languishing in the detention facilities in Afghanistan have absolutely no contact with any outside agency or Human Rights’ groups. It is from these facilities that some prisoners are shifted to Guantanamo Bay by air from Kohat in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. At Guantanamo Bay, the abuse stories and illegal detention are another issue. After the Tora Bora operation in Afghanistan, Pakistan Army had totally sealed the borders so that Taliban fighters of Pakistani origin could not cross over into Pakistan. These fighters with misplaced ideologies are amongst those detained by US officials and not even their supporters in Pakistan, such as the Jamaat-i-Islami, have made any move to repatriate them.

A report published last month by the Human Rights Watch has recorded cases where US personnel continue to mistreat the detainees in Afghanistan. Data collected through private sources and journalists reporting from near the detention facilities has revealed sordid details of the treatment.

A reporter of Associated Press revealed after an interview with two detainees held in Bagram that prisoners were continuously subjected to sleep deprivation, forced to stand for long periods and even kept in a freezing cell, naked and doused with cold water.

Brad Adams, the executive director of the Asia division of the Human Rights Watch, in his statement included in the Human Rights Watch report, says: “The United States is setting a terrible example in Afghanistan on detention practices. Civilians are being held in a legal black hole with no tribunals, no legal counsel, no family visits and no basic legal protections.” The report has also categorically stated that the US-administered system of arrests and detention in Afghanistan exists outside the rule of law. As for any assistance that may be rendered to the detainees by the Human Rights’ group, the possibility does not arise as no Human Rights’ group is allowed to visit the detainees. The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only body which makes its routine visits and their reports take a long, bureaucratic and procedural route before they come to light.

From Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to Afghanistan and Iraq, enough data exists to support a continual line of abusive behaviour wherever there has been US intervention. Reports include:

Libya — campaign against the people and assassination attempts on Muammar Qadhafi, where estimated civilian deaths were in hundreds and which included Qadhafi’s two-year-old daughter;

Chile — where in the US-backed overthrow of the democratic government of Salvador Allende, over 5,000 people died after the Pinochet terror campaign;

Cambodia — where estimated civilians deaths are recorded between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 in what is termed as the American Genocide of the Cambodian people;

Laos — where estimated total civilian deaths were over 500,000. And it is said that the CIA creation called Arme Clandestine rained down more than two million tons of bombs here between 1965 and 1973.

And then there was Vietnam where the senseless genocide of the Vietnamese people occurred which included besides abuse and rape incidents, a shower of nearly eight million tons of bombs (like Napalm and cluster bombs) and defoliants (Agent Orange).

Can all these incidents over 50 years or so be termed as ‘isolated’ occurrences? Documented evidence is there to prove that US Marines and Air Force murdered three million people in Vietnam, in countless places such as My Lai. Most of these victims were women and children. The CIA even had an official programme of state terrorism in Vietnam known as Operation Phoenix.

So now when the US Defence Secretary states that a special commission is investigating the abuse incident and that victims would get compensation, should the world accept the explanations and apologies offered by the American state-machinery and naively believe that no injustice was intended? Is the world also to blithely believe that US policies are aimed at respecting sanctity of human life?

What is most scary about the scandalous revelations of the photographs emerging from Iraq is that the emphasis — even at the Congress hearing — was on how the photos made it to the media; the media’s integrity at publishing them and the ‘negative image’ created of the rest of the US military which basically does ‘good things’ for people in other countries and the ‘disrespect’ it has brought on the ‘valour’ of US armed forces. Is there valour to be dug out from under this dirt?

Until the US line of governance — military as well as civilian — does not accept that abuse, high-handed intervention and state terrorism is what forms its ruling principles. The world should accept no explanation, apology or compensation offered for indignities inflicted en masse by US intervention forces.

It was just a few days ago that the BBC quoted Al-Ahrar, an Egyptian newspaper, which tells another incredible tale in which military authorities in Baghdad are subcontracting the running of prisons to an American security company well known, the paper says, for making money off drugs and kidnapping girls for prostitution. It seems that many more statements from Mr Rumsfeld should be expected which will probably also state: “I had not realized the seriousness of the allegations until pictures were leaked to the media.”

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